Voices from a Golden Age: Edward Christian-Hare assesses early recordings from ‘New Bayreuth’

Review of Richard Wagner: Bayreuth 1954: Tannhäuser, conducted Keilberth; Die Walküre, conducted Keilberth; Lohengrin, conducted Jochum; Parsifal, conducted Knappertsbusch (Pan Classics PC, 13 CDs).

November 2026, Volume 20, Number 3, 86–9.

By 1954, ‘New Bayreuth’ was firmly established as an annual event in Germany’s postwar calendar. Wagner’s festival had been banned by the occupying American army in 1945; the Festspielhaus instead hosted non-Wagnerian performances as Germany began to recover from the war. Finally in 1951, the curtains opened on postwar Bayreuth under the co-directorship of Wagner’s grandsons, Wieland and Wolfgang.